ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — About 2,000 people chanted "Death to America" and "Death to Denmark" as they rallied in a small town near the Afghan border to protest the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that have sparked violent demonstrations in Muslim countries.

The protesters in Barwand also burned flags of Denmark — where the caricatures were first printed — and torched effigies of the Danish prime minister and U.S. President George Bush.

About 10,000 people also protested against the cartoons in the southern Iraqi city of Karbala, burning Danish flags and demanding Iraq ties with Denmark.

In Denmark, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said authorities have taken "all the necessary steps" to protect the cartoonists who made the prophet drawings. A Pakistani cleric last week offered a $1 million bounty for killing one of them.

Fogh Rasmussen also reiterated he regrets that Muslims worldwide have been offended by the drawings published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, but said his government cannot be held responsible for the actions of its independent press.

"I think it is evident for everyone that this crisis is no longer about the 12 drawings in Jyllands-Posten," the Danish leader said. "It's about everything else and different agendas in the Muslim world. It's obvious that extremist circles exploit the situation."

In Indonesia, police arrested a member of a hardline Muslim group for allegedly taking part in a violent protest at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, an official said.

Some 400 members of the Islam Defenders Front threw rocks and broke windows at the embassy over the weekend, claiming the U.S. government masterminded the publication of the cartoons in a bid to discredit Islam.

The man arrested Tuesday faces a maximum penalty of 5 1/2 years in prison for damaging property, said police spokesman Col. I Ketut Untung Yoga.

Most of the drawings were published by European media outlets. The cartoons offend Muslims because Islamic tradition is interpreted to bar drawings of Muhammad in a policy to discourage idolatry.

Demonstrations have claimed at least 45 lives worldwide, including 15 who died in Nigeria on Saturday and 10 killed in the Libyan coastal city of Benghazi on Friday.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Tuesday the cartoons were an attempt to cause a "clash of civilization" by people who are ignorant about Islam and want to demonize the religion.

"We cannot condone such insensitivities toward our beliefs and condemn it in the strongest way," he said at an Islamic conference. "Islam does not believe in the clash of civilization, rather it advocates harmony, coexistence, peace and compassion."

Just outside Pakistan's capital in Rawalpindi, about five major markets were closed Tuesday as shopkeepers protested the cartoons.

Mushtaq Ali Shah, senior vice president of Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which helped organize the strike, said a rally wasn't being held because the businesses didn't want the protest to turn into a riot that damages property.